Gen. Francis L. Donovan, commander of U.S. Southern Command, center, poses for a photo with senior Cuban military leaders including Gen. Roberto Legra Sotolongo, center left, at the perimeter of Naval Station Gunatanamo Bay, Cuba, on May 29, 2026. (U.S. Southern Command/X)
A four-star Marine general held a rare meeting recently with senior Cuban military officials on the perimeter of the Navy base at Guantanamo Bay amid heightened U.S. pressure on the island nation.
Gen. Francis L. Donovan, the top general at U.S. Southern Command, had a “brief exchange” about security issues with several senior Cuban military officials, SOUTHCOM said Friday on X.
Among the senior officials was Cuban Gen. Roberto Legra Sotolongo, first deputy minister of the chief of the general staff.
The meeting was “positive,” the Cuban military said in a statement on X, and the commands agreed to maintain communications.
Neither side’s post provided further details about the topics discussed, but SOUTHCOM’s statement said Donovan “also led a perimeter security assessment of the naval base and discussed force protection, safety of service members and their families, and operational readiness” with officials at the base, which covers 45 square miles.
The command covers military activity in Central and South America and the Caribbean.
Gen. Francis L. Donovan, commander of U.S. Southern Command, discusses Naval Station Guantanamo Bay’s security posture with junior Marines during a visit to the installation on Friday, May 29, 2026. Donovan’s visit came amid heightened U.S. pressure on Cuba. (U.S. Southern Command/X)
Gen. Francis L. Donovan, commander of U.S. Southern Command, inspects Naval Station Guantanamo Bay’s security posture during a visit to the installation on Friday, May 29, 2026. (U.S. Southern Command/X)
In January 2025, the U.S. halted a longtime practice of monthly meetings between the Guantanamo base commander, a Navy captain, and a regional Cuban military commander to discuss concerns and misunderstandings, The New York Times reported.
The “fenceline meetings” were held on alternating sides of the 17-mile fence separating the base from the Cuban-controlled area.
The sides are separated by a salt flat that had been protected by some 50,000 mines before former President Bill Clinton ordered them removed in 1996.
Between meetings, the two sides maintained email communications “religiously,” Stars and Stripes reported in 2008, quoting the base’s executive officer at the time.
In early May, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, was photographed alongside Donovan in front of a map of Cuba, which some saw as an ominous warning of a possible invasion.
At a news conference, Rubio downplayed the photo, saying the map had been chosen because the island about 90 miles south of Florida is the country in SOUTHCOM closest to the U.S.
But the meeting of the high-ranking military officers in Cuba follows a U.S. military buildup around the island. U.S. intelligence and reconnaissance flights in the region have increased as the U.S. has ratcheted up pressure following President Donald Trump’s calls for regime change in Cuba.
Last week, the Pentagon said the more than 4,500 Marines and sailors of the Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group were heading home after nearly 10 months deployed to the Caribbean.
The announcement came days after SOUTHCOM welcomed the aircraft carrier Nimitz and the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Gridley to the region.
A purpose-built Marine air-ground task force of over 1,300 Marines and sailors from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit out of Camp Lejeune, N.C., took over from the 22nd MEU, which had been embarked on the Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group, SOUTHCOM said Friday.
Designated Littoral Combat Force-24 and deployed to Puerto Rico, the Marine unit will serve as a crisis response force for the region.
The high-level meeting last week also comes in the wake of CIA director John Ratcliffe’s trip to Havana to meet with Cuban officials.
He warned the country to stop letting Russia and China run intelligence posts there, The New York Times reported last month, citing unidentified U.S. officials.
The U.S. spy chief brought with him one of the paramilitary officers involved in the January operation that captured former Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro and brought him to New York to face drug trafficking charges, CBS News reported.
Cuba, an ally of Venezuela before Maduro’s arrest, has said dozens of its military and police officers were killed during the operation. The island country has been a U.S. enemy since the 1959 revolution led by Fidel Castro.
Ratcliffe made a point of introducing the paramilitary leader to the Cubans as the one who killed those officers, CBS News reported.
During his second term, Trump has repeatedly called for the overthrow of the Cuban government and has suggested that the island will become a U.S. military focus after the conclusion of the war with Iran.
